December 27, 2017

Arts

As 2018 approaches, galleries in Pioneer Square are inviting art enthusiasts to stop by for the First Thursday Art Walk.

It’s a decades-long and widely popular tradition in Seattle’s oldest neighborhood. Dozens of galleries are showcasing new work by visual artists.

First Thursday parking is free from 5 – 10 p.m. at Frye Garage (117 Third Ave. S.) and Butler Garage (114 James St.). To redeem, pick up a voucher at participating Pioneer Square stores, restaurants or galleries.

News

In September, The Stranger published an opinion piece on The Slog by a man named Allen Benson disputing public perceptions of people experiencing homelessness and calling on then-mayoral candidates Jenny Durkan and Cary Moon to make concrete proposals on how to end the crisis in Seattle.

At the time, Benson was homeless, living in a clean and sober shelter. At no point in the article did he say he partook of drugs or alcohol. He didn’t need to; the information didn’t relate to the substance of the piece.

On Friday, Dec. 22, almost two dozen people gathered on a cold, clear afternoon at First Avenue and Marion Street to celebrate the life of Jonas Stone, a Real Change vendor known for his mission to make people smile.

It’s a common refrain about homelessness in Seattle: People are flocking to the region for the overabundance of free services. Like the supernatural villain in a horror flick who’s stabbed, doused with gasoline and set ablaze, then subjected to a Latin incantation aimed at sending them to parts unknown, the notion of Freeattle doesn’t want to die. It’s still inhaling deep breaths of falsehoods despite evidence to the contrary.

Israel Bayer has dedicated over 15 years of his life to homeless advocacy, a large portion of which was spent at the helm of Portland’s Street Roots as its executive director. But this week Israel stepped down from his position to make way for a new chapter in the history of the publication.

Features

Myths hold power. We use them as devices to explain the inexplicable, a way to convey a reality devoid of context. Phenomena like the ebb and flow of the tides can be described without being defined. The vicissitudes of the human condition can be examined at arm’s length.

The use of myths to impart truths without the trappings of rigorous fact strips the requirement for detail, allowing topics to be addressed as a monolithic whole.

It removes the potential for nuance — that great height makes it possible to see the mountain at the expense of the crevices.

Opinion

When my girls were little, there was a story that I read them once before throwing away. Here’s how it went: A hungry moose shows up at the kitchen window and a kid gives him a muffin. Then the moose thinks he should have some jam as well. From there, things quickly spiral out of control.

“If you give a moose a muffin,” the narrator says, “he’ll want another, and another, and another.”

“…the ultimate and only radical cure of the vices and miseries of Africa is Christianity…”— Joseph John Gurney to John Scoble, English Christian ministers, Dec. 5, 1840

A small underground society swelled by devotion to God and by their supernatural acts became cherished by the people and, as we know, hated, hunted and extinguished by the government of Rome, which at that time considered itself to be the center of the known world — Roma Caput Mundi.

As Trump’s tax plan is now law, we expect to see less of everything we’ve been needing here in the Emerald City.

We’ve just seen in Seattle that if your shelter hasn’t got enough people into housing it won’t get the funding it used to get. The thinking behind that was if there isn’t housing for those people to go to now, there will be. Because, magic? No wait, we can have federal funds to create new housing! Yay! That was why everyone backed the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, remember? If it succeeded there’d be federal funds to reward us.

Poetry

The Homeless do not have doors.No doors to open, no doors to close.No doors to keep the cold and rain out.They have zippered flaps to their tents or no partition at all to their tarps.Camping is fun when it’s by choice, for a couple of nights, but not for life. Hiking is also fun, but not when you’re being swept by the City and the cops tell you to “take a hike!”